Quantifying the Cost of Manual Navigation: A Comparison of Gesture-Based Magnification versus Direct Access Reading in Digital Layout-based Documents

2026-04-29

AI Summary

This study quantifies the detrimental impact of manual navigation—such as zooming and panning—on reading efficiency and user experience in structured digital documents like newspapers, particularly when visual cues are limited, compared to direct structural access. By contrasting conventional gesture-based navigation with a layout that enables direct access via enlarged text, the authors employ linear mixed-effects models to analyze task success rates, completion times, and reading pathways, complemented by NASA-TLX assessments of subjective workload and preference. The work provides the first systematic evidence that gesture-based navigation disrupts natural reading strategies and demonstrates that combining layout adaptation with font enlargement significantly restores efficient reading: reading speed increases by 18%, target localization accelerates by 30%, cognitive load is reduced, and user preference improves markedly, offering a new paradigm for accessible digital publishing.

Abstract

Understanding how diverse audiences engage with structured media is critical to ensure a consistent quality of experience. In this context, we quantify the behavioral and performance cost of manual navigation (e.g., pinch and zoom) versus direct structural access in layout-based digital documents. We specifically investigate newspaper reading when visual access to structural cues (headlines as entry points) is constrained. Participants completed two tasks-reading all headlines aloud and locating target articles-under two conditions: (1) original edition with gesture-based magnification (pan and zoom), which is the industry standard for digital documents, and (2) large-print edition supporting direct-access reading. We collected performance measures (success ratio and completion time), behavioral integrity through reading path analysis, alongside perceived workload and preferences (NASA-TLX). Results from linear mixed-effects models show that the large-print condition yielded not only better performance than gesture-based magnification (18% improvement in reading speed, 30% improvement in speed to locate a target), but more importantly, restored the natural reading strategy that gesture-based magnification interaction disrupts. Readers also reported lower workload and higher preference. These findings highlight the importance of developing automated methods for generating large-print editions, where layout adaptation complements font scaling to support accessibility and quality of experience.

Problem

• manual navigation
• gesture-based magnification
• layout-based documents
• reading accessibility
• structural access

Innovation

• gesture-based magnification
• direct-access reading
• layout adaptation
• accessibility
• reading behavior